Tag Archives: Jay-Z

As much as I miss so many things about living in New York City, during the winter months I’m glad I moved to Los Angeles. I spent the first forty winters of my life on the east coast. I’m fine never again seeing snow or experiencing temperatures below 35 degrees.

When I was living in Manhattan I would take one week every winter to escape the city and head to the Caribbean or Mexico. I needed that time to thaw out. I didn’t take that trip the winter of 2002/2003, using my vacation fund to purchase a laptop instead. When LA-based Rhino Records called me in March 2003 to see if I’d consider moving out west to work for them, it was the fifth month of winter and I hadn’t a break. I said yes.

Growing up my parents would take us on vacations every winter. We went to the US Virgin Islands, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other warm places. We visited not-so-warm places as well. One year we went to Switzerland, where we skied down the Swiss Alps. One afternoon after we finished skiing for the day we took a walk. We heard what sounded like a loud rumble of thunder, but the sky was blue. Looking up, we saw an avalanche coming down the mountain right toward where we were. We ran for shelter in an igloo that was nearby (I have no idea why there was an igloo there), but not before I snapped some photos. Who knew when I would next see an avalanche?

Avalanche!

Similar things happened in other places I traveled with my family. I think it was on St. Thomas where we were told the evening we arrived that we had to leave our beachside bungalow and move into a room further up the hill, as a tidal wave was expected. The day we arrived in Barbados it was raining, which surprised and pleased our cab driver from the airport, who said they had been experiencing a very long drought. Fret no more, sir; the Schwartzes are here and we bring weather.

Traveling alone as an adult I didn’t have such weather-related events in the places I visited, but I more than made up for that with other misadventures. There was the time I accidentally hired a hooker to show me around Prague. There was the time in Puerto Vallarta where I signed up for a nature trek that turned out to be an orgy. There was that time in Istanbul where looking for an authentic Turkish bath I stumbled upon an underground sex club. I would have preferred a tour guide, a nature trek and a Turkish bath, but such is life.

I love to travel, but these days I’m not compelled to do so during the winter, where in LA we’ve enjoyed seventy-something degree weather the last few weeks. For those of you who are having a winter, do your best to stay warm and healthy.

To help you heat up, this week’s Tunes du Jour dance playlist features twenty-tracks from Barbados-born Rihanna. Did you know that Rihanna has had more #1 hits on the US Dance chart than any female artist save Madonna? She’s hit the top spot on that chart 21 times. This week, Madonna has her 44th #1 dance hit, “Living for Love,” so Rihanna has a way to go to overtake her. However, Rihanna can take solace in knowing that she has the #1 song in Glenn’s Ten this week, “FourFiveSeconds.”

“I just know that the Grammys, if they want real artists, to keep coming back, they need to stop playing with us. We ain’t gonna play with them no more. And Beck needs to respect artistry and he should’ve given his award to Beyoncé. Because when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in their face after they deliver monumental feats of music, you’re disrespectful to inspiration. And we as musicians have to inspire people who go to work every day, and they listen to that Beyoncé album and they feel like it takes them to another place.” – Kanye West on the Grammy Award for Album of the Year going to Beck’s Morning Phase rather than Beyoncé’s self-titled release

“I thought she was going to win. Come on, she’s Beyoncé! You can’t please everybody, man. I still love [West] and think he’s genius. I aspire to do what he does.” – Beck

“I wasn’t saying Beck; I said the Grammys. Beck knows that Beyoncé should have won; you know that. Come on, man. I love Beck! But he didn’t have the Album of the Year.” – Kanye West

Kanye West, official spokesperson for the Bey Nation, gave his opinion and the Internet blew up! It was a repeat of 2009, when West announced that Taylor Swift stole the MTV Best Female Video Award that should have gone to Beyoncé. The American people were up in arms! So much vitriol was sent West-ward and his detractors found plenty of reasons to go after him the ensuing years. As the wise trophy thief said, “the haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate.”

Kanye’s point was about creating art and reaching new heights in one’s craft. The only intelligent responses to further this discourse, per the many comments I saw on Facebook and Twitter, are “You’re classless” and “You’re garbage.” One person who didn’t call Kanye garbage was Shirley Manson, the lead singer of the band Garbage. She called him “a complete twat.”

At least all of us can sleep better knowing that Kanye loves Beck. They are two of my favorite all-time artists for many of the same reasons. They seldom repeat themselves, making each album they release different than the previous one. Neither follows trends. Both challenge themselves. Both are masters of their craft. Both can be sincere. Both can be funny. Neither has released a bad record.

However…

Beyoncé should have gotten the Album of the Year Grammy. Her self-titled album was a revelation. Following up her uneven 4, she took a giant leap forward and strived to make something more artistic than what we were used to from her. She succeeded. The Beck record, Morning Phase, sounds beautiful, but there were no surprises. It was announced early in 2014 that Beck would be releasing a new album that was in a mellow vein. I got what I expected. It was as fine as I thought it would be, and stronger than his last couple of releases. I like Morning Phase very much, more than the other nominated Albums of the Year performed by Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith and Pharrell Williams, but it’s nothing we haven’t heard Beck do before. Ironically, in Beyoncé’s quest to be more artistic, her album outsold its predecessor. Like Kanye said, she had the Album of the Year.

Enough of the Grammy voters felt otherwise and awarded Beck. That’s fine. There have been worse slights in the Grammy Album of the Year category than Beyoncé losing to Beck. What about the 1996 awards, when Beck’s Odelay lost to Celine Dion’s Falling into You? Or in 2000, when Beck’s Midnight Vultures lost to Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature? Or in 2005, when U2’s Hot to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb beat Kanye’s Late Registration and in 2004, when Ray Charles & Friends’ Genius Loves Company beat Kanye’s The College Dropout and Green Day’s American Idiot? Steely Dan, U2 and Ray Charles have released many albums deserving of Album of the Year. These weren’t them. U2 should have won 1992’s Album of the Year for Achtung Baby. They lost to Eric Clapton Unplugged. In 2007, Kanye’s Graduation and Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black both lost Album of the Year to Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters, a record that literally nobody has ever heard. In 1980, Christopher Cross’ self-titled debut beat Pink Floyd’s The Wall. In 1966, The Beatles’ Revolver lost to Frank Sinatra’s A Man and His Music. In 2012, Mumford & Sons’ Babel beat albums by Frank Ocean, Jack White and The Black Keys. The nominees for 1984’s Album of the Year Grammy were Prince’s Purple Rain, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, and Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down. Four classic albums plus one by Lionel Richie. The winner? Lionel Richie! WTF on a stick?!?! In 1991 the Album of the Year Grammy didn’t go to R.E.M., nominated for Out of Time. It went to Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable…with Love. Eligible but not nominated that year? A little album called Nevermind by a band named Nirvana. Oh well, whatever. In 1982, Toto IV beat…it doesn’t matter who else was nominated. It’s Toto Fuckin’ IV, people.

It looks like Beyoncé will have to wait longer before she is in the same hallowed company as Toto.

In less contentious news this week, ISIS killed U.S. hostage Kayla Mueller, Boko Haram killed thirteen soldiers and 81 civilians in Chad, and the Chief Justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court forbade probate judges in that state to issue marriage license to same-sex couples, despite a judge’s ruling that such unions are legal and the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to issue a stay on that ruling.

Today is Bobby Brown’s 46th birthday. A former member of New Edition, Brown had his first solo hit in 1988 with “Don’t Be Cruel,” which reached #8 on the Hot 100. Though it shares its title with an Elvis Presley #1 hit from 1956, Brown’s “Don’t Be Cruel” is not a remake.

That brings us to today’s playlist, which I call The Song Retains the Name. It consists of different songs with the same title. I initially planned to include twenty such songs, but more kept springing to mind. Before I knew it, I passed 100 entries. There are plenty more, so I decided to open this up to my reader(s). If you have songs that share titles you’d like to add, feel free to do so.

(NOTES: I included The Jacksons’ “This Place Hotel” because when it was released in 1980 its title was “Heartbreak Hotel.” Thought he didn’t have to, Michael Jackson, the song’s writer, later changed its name to “This Place Hotel” to avoid confusion with the Elvis Presley song “Heartbreak Hotel.” Whitney Houston didn’t feel the need to make the same Hotel accommodation.

Also, though it is listed on Spotify as “The Best of My Love,” the Eagles track does not have a “The” on the 45 or the band’s On the Border album.)

Today is the birthday of two music icons – Jam-Master Jay of rap pioneers Run-D.M.C. and disc jockey Wolfman Jack. Besides their place in their history of rock and roll, both men have another thing in common – they were the subjects of songs. That inspired me to put together today’s playlist – songs named after real people.

I found fifty songs whose titles are actual people. Actually I found more than fifty, but I didn’t want to subject you to Chiddy Bang or Mac Miller. I made a few rules for myself:
1) The title can’t have words besides the person’s name, hence no Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” or Sleater-Kinney’s “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone.”
2) The title has to be the full name the person is known by, so no “Springsteen” by Eric Church or “Jessica” (about Jessica Simpson) by Adam Green. Allowed are “Galileo,” “Joan of Arc” and “King Tut,” as that is how most people identify Galileo Galilei, Joan d’Arc and Tutankhamun.
3) The song doesn’t have to be about the person after whom it is titled, so “Jack the Ripper” and “Rosa Parks” are in.
4) The track has to be on Spotify. This means I left out Bob Dylan’s “George Jackson” and Hoodie Allen’s “James Franco.”

Amazingly for a playlist based on such a goofy concept, it holds together quite well, if I say so myself.

I don’t understand Beyoncé. She spells her name with an accent over the second e, but she pronounces her name with the accent on the second syllable. That makes no sense to me. Musically, however, I was down with Cé in 2014. She challenged herself artistically with her latest album, snuck out at the tail end of 2013, and for the most part she succeeded. Yonc places four songs in my year-end list, more than anybody else, with two of those songs in my top ten. And to think, she owes her whole career to me.

The big trend that nobody talks about is that Sweden has invaded in a big way. Tove Lo and Neneh Cherry (welcome back!) are on my year-end list, and First Aid Kit are in this week’s top ten. Three acts may not look like a big trend to you, but let’s encourage Sweden. They still have a ways to go to make up for Ace of Base. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, Norway is represented by Röyksopp, Annie and Bjarne Melgaard. Come on, Denmark and Finland – let’s step it up! Other foreign acts representing this year are Britain’s George Ezra, Katy B, Disclosure, Sam Smith, SBTRKT and alt-J; Scotland’s Paolo Nutini and Belle & Sebastian; Canada’s Mac DeMarco, Tegan & Sara and Arcade Fire; Australia’s Courtney Barnett and Sia; France’s Daft Punk, Nigeria’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and Neverland’s Michael Jackson.

There’s little hip hop on my 2014 list. Very little. Two songs, both performed by Kendrick Lamar. This is the poorest showing for rap in a year-end list since the early eighties, I think. I’m too lazy to look for my old listings, but I’m pretty sure that’s accurate. Was hip hop really that lame this year or am I turning into my mother?

Country music fared a little better than hip hop. Three songs, two of those performed by Miranda Lambert. The third song is “Follow Your Arrow,” performed by Kasey Musgraves, which is my #1 song of 2014. This is the first time a country song has topped my year-end list, I think. I’m too lazy to look for my old listings, but I’m pretty sure that’s accurate. The song, about being true to yourself and not letting others dictate your path, resonated with me when I was at a crossroads in my professional life. Do I continue working for the man in a soul-sucking job or do I pursue my passions? I opted to follow my arrow. If I crash and burn, Musgraves will hear from my lawyer. Also, it was rad to hear a simple, catchy tune coupled with the lyrics “Kiss lots of boys or kiss lots of girls if that’s what you’re into.” It was radder that this song won the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year award, despite being only a modest hit on the country chart. Raddest was that two male country singers, Billy Gilman and Ty Hendon, who each have sold hundreds of thousands of records, announced that they kissed lots of boys and that’s what they’re into. I’m paraphrasing.

I now present to you my favorite songs of 2014. The list was compiled from my weekly top ten lists. I crunched the numbers and this is the result. Songs that are in Glenn’s Ten at the present time (e.g. First Aid Kit’s “Cedar Lane,” Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk!,” Perfume Genius’ “Queen”) are not included; I’ll put them on my 2015 list. Here are the 83 tracks that made my weekly top ten in 2014:

The motion picture Annie, which opens today, is an imaginative and refreshing telling of a story we all think we heard before.

Like recent biopics such as Ray, Walk the Line and Dreamgirls, some liberties were taken in this film version of the life of Eurythmics lead singer Annie Lennox, who, coincidentally, celebrates her 60th birthday today. Though in real life Lennox was born and raised in Scotland, the filmmakers set their story in New York City. Lennox was 28 years old when Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” became a worldwide smash, making her a very wealthy woman. In the film Annie, she is ten years old when her sweet dreams come true and she acquires wealth.

This past summer’s Jimi Hendrix biopic, All Is by My Side, was unable to acquire the rights to use Hendrix’s music, so they used cover songs that Hendrix performed in his pre-fame days. Similarly, the producers of Annie were unable to secure the rights to Eurythmics’ songs, so instead they wrote new songs loosely based on the duo’s recordings. “When Tomorrow Comes” from their album Revenge, is now simply “Tomorrow.” “Grown Up Girls,” the b-side of the “There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)” single, is now “Little Girls.”

Eurythmics’ infamous performance from the Grammy Awards, in which Lennox cross-dressed as a dark-haired, sideburned man, is replicated in the film, though instead of taking place at the Shrine Auditorium, the scene is set on a helicopter. Nonetheless, the confusion the TV audience experienced in 1984, when viewers asked “Why is there a man singing ‘Sweet Dreams?’,” is beautifully captured, as the film audience will be confused and ask “Why are they dancing on a helicopter?”

As you probably know, the studio that released Annie, Sony Pictures, experienced a huge email leak a couple of weeks ago, in which it was revealed, among other things, that the producers originally wanted Amy Adams to play Annie Lennox. However, her asking price was too high, or as Sony’s Co-Chairman Amy Pascal put it in an email to film co-producer Jay-Z, “She wants a man’s salary. She’ll get it when she’s really adopted by a milionaire!,” to which Jay-Z replied “LOL!” Though Adams would have been good, 11-year-old Quetzalcoatl Wallis handles herself admirably. While we never get into her mind to see how she came up with “Here Comes the Rain Again” or “Would I Lie to You?,” she is cute, and the film’s equivalent of the Eurythmics/Aretha Franklin hit “Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves,” here performed with Willow Smith, is a highlight.

In an inspired bit of casting, Cameron Diaz portrays Whitney Houston, who had a hit with the Lennox composition “Step by Step.” Diaz is a great choice for the role, as she possesses the same range as the late Houston.

Cameron Diaz has the same range as the late Whitney Houston.

Annie is rated PG. It contains mild language, rude humor, and a dance number set on a helicopter.

Song of the Year
Same as Record of the Year, except instead of “Fancy” you’ve got Hozier’s “Take Me to Church”

Album of the Year
They plan on announcing the nominees in this category tonight during the A Very Grammy Christmas television special. Ariana Grande, Maroon 5 and Album of the Year nominations? Cancel your Friday night plans!

Best New Artist
Bastille
Iggy Azalea
Haim
Sam Smith
Some lady I’ve never heard of

Best Urban Contemporary Album
Jhené Aiko – How Do You Pronounce That?
Beyoncé – I’m Now The Most Nominated Woman In Grammy History, So Bow Down Bitches
Chris Brown – Undeserved
Mali Music – Who?
Pharrell Williams – Gurl!

Best Country Album
Miranda Lambert – Platinum
+ four others

Best Spoken Word Album (a/k/a Best Audiobook)
Forget the titles; look at this list of nominated performers – James Franco, John Waters, Joan Rivers, Gloria Gaynor, Elizabeth Warren and Jimmy Carter! They better present this one on the telecast! Gurl!

Best R&B Song
Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z – “Drunk In Love”
Usher – “I’m Going to Lose to Beyoncé”
Chris Brown featuring Usher and Rick Ross – “I Don’t Deserve a Nomination and I’m Going to Lose to Beyoncé”
Luke James featuring Rick Ross – “You Never Heard of Me and I’m Going to Lose to Beyoncé”
Jhené Aiko – “Though I Also Have an Accent over the Second E in My First Name I’m Going to Lose to Beyoncé”

Best Country Song
Miranda Lambert – “Automatic”
+ four others

Best Dance Recording
Seriously, there is a category for the best audiobook. The Grammy Awards’ tag-line is “Music’s Biggest Night.” Unless Elizabeth Warren sang her memoirs this category should not exist.

This post doesn’t cover all nominations. In total, the Grammy Awards have nominees in 12,623 categories, three of which are presented on the air. Tune in sometime in January or February to see who wins as well as a rare live television appearance from the reclusive Taylor Swift!

As for now, it’s Friday, which is dance day on Tunes du Jour. As tomorrow is Ira Gershwin’s 118th birthday, we’ll kick off this week’s dance party with Donna Summer, who by now may have dined with the famed lyricist.

“What people do in their own homes is their business, and you can choose to love whoever you love. That’s their business. It’s no different than discriminating against blacks. It’s discrimination, plain and simple.”

The above quote comes from Jay-Z. He was referring to gay rights in an interview with Poppy Harlow on CNN in May 2012. Referencing the lack of marriage equality nationwide, he said “I always thought it as something that is still holding the country back.”

He always thought this? Even in 1996, when he rapped about “Too many faggot niggas clocking my spending?” Or the following year, when he rapped ““Hate a nigga like that faggot?” How about the lyric in which he complains about “faggots” talking to the police, which is followed by his promise to kill those faggots? Or his rap “Why is you over here lookin’ at me while all these girls up in here? What you gay?” Or the song in which he calls rapper Nas, no strange to homophobic lyrics himself, a “fag?” That’s the same song in which he mocks Mobb Deep’s Prodigy with a gay implication. Was he ruminating about how gay Americans deserve the same rights accorded to straight Americans when he rapped “Now I ain’t down with who like me or who like you. That’s gay, I ain’t into liking dudes no way?” When he said “And since you infatuated with sayin’ tha gay shit, yes you was kissin’ my dick when you was kissin’ that bitch,” was he really saying “I respect you as a man, for I am a man as well, and we are all equal?”

There are rappers, specifically Eminem, who defend the use of the word “faggot” by saying it doesn’t mean gay; it means weak. Equating a gay slur with weakness or a lesser-than status isn’t homophobic? First of all, that’s bullshit. Secondly, in the case of the Jay-Z lyrics cited above, he is referring to gay men.

Perhaps, like President Obama, who endorsed marriage equality shortly before the rapper’s CNN interview, Jay-Z has evolved. I’m skeptical that he “always” felt the lack of equality was holding the country back, but I’m glad he feels that way now. He is one of the two most-famous rap artists in the world. He is not running for office and trying to garner votes. His support means a lot. As Clinton Yates wrote in the Washington Post, “Hopefully, Jay-Z’s words can lead generations of music fans out of the fog when it comes to being an open-minded and accepting citizen of the world.”

Today Jay-Z turns 45 years old. Here are twenty of his finest raps, homophobia-free. Misogynist? That’s a discussion for another time.

Ten Facts About Britney Spears’s “Toxic”:
• It was Britney’s fourth top ten single in the US, after “…Baby One More Time,” “(You Drive Me) Crazy,” “Oops! I Did It Again.” Four years passed between “Oops” and “Toxic.”
• It went to #1 in the UK, Australia, Canada, Hungary, Norway, Argentina, Ireland and Iceland, and went top ten in sixteen other countries.
• It won Britney her first Grammy Award, for Best Dance Recording.
• Initially the song was offered to Kylie Minogue, but she passed.
• One of its four writers is Cathy Dennis, who had hits as a singer in the late 1980s/early 90s with “Touch Me (All Night Long),” “Just Another Dream,” “Too Many Walls,” and “C’mon and Get My Love.” Dennis is a writer on Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You out of My Head,” Kelly Clarkson’s “Before Your Love” and Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.”
• “Toxic” was produced by the Swedish production duo Bloodshy & Advant, who also produced Spears’ “Piece of Me” and “My Prerogative.”
• Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, NME and The Telegraph named “Toxic” one of the best singles of the first decade of this millennium. Pitchfork ranked it at #3 on their Best Singles of 2004 list, while the Village Voice critics poll had it at #5.
• Naming it one of the best tracks of the decade, NME wrote “It’s the song that little girls dance to at discos. It’s the standard soundtrack to gay clubs and hen nights. And it basically soundtracked all fun in the last decade from the moment it was released.”
• In 2010, Britney Spears said that “Toxic” was her favorite song from her catalogue.
• In 2013, Jay-Z said that “Toxic” was his favorite song from the Britney Spears oeuvre.